Conflict with the South African State

Abstract

Operating from London, South African exile organizations enjoyed a freedom of distance that protected them and their British-based members from detentions, bannings and censorship. Nevertheless, through much of their time in the United Kingdom, political exiles were subject to a range of symbolic and physical violence from the South African government. Pretoria engaged in a campaign of misinformation and disinformation in a long-running attempt to portray exiles as violent, communist-dominated, self-interested, unstable criminal agitators. It sought to inflame dissension within exile ranks, and undermine support for exiles in both the United Kingdom and South Africa (Israel, 1997b, 1998).